The Guest of Honor

by Irving Wallace

  “You have my word, it won’t,” pledged Lucas. He rose and headed for the door. “See you at fifteen after eleven.”

  The limousine and driver and the Secret Service arrived on time.

  The president left the White House by the back entrance, virtually unseen.

  He had dressed his dapper best, a summerweight gray suit, darker gray shirt, and a red tie with white polka dots.

  At Blair House he stepped out of the limousine to escort Noy from the guesthouse. To his eyes, she was a dream of youth. She wore a blue Chanel sweater, and a pleated white chiffon skirt, and she took his hand with warmth.

  Once seated in the rear, Underwood explained to Noy where they would be going, as he had earlier to the chauffeur.

  At each site they stopped briefly. Underwood’s flashes of commentary were in his old television style and he was at his best.

  “An odd American city,” he said as they cruised along. “It was planned by a Frenchman. The majority of its inhabitants are black. Two thirds of its working population live in Virginia and Maryland.… That’s the Capitol dome, which is a cast-iron copy of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The interior of the dome is partially decorated with sculptured tobacco leaves, and no warning about smoking endangering your health.… There’s the Washington Monument, an obelisk over five hundred fifty-five feet high and 90,854 tons in weight. At first it tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa but was straightened out in 1880. No one is allowed to walk up the eight hundred ninety-seven steps—an elevator takes you to the top in seventy seconds—but you can walk down and see a hundred and eighty-eight tribute slabs from various states, countries, the Cherokee nation, and Brigham Young’s Deseret, where polygamy was allowed. The Monument celebrates our first president, who led us to freedom yet made millions of dollars on slave labor.

  The Japanese cherry trees in blossom are a gorgeous sight, aren’t they? The first shipment from Tokyo was infected with fungus and had to be burned down. The trees you see were planted in 1912.… They face a memorial to the revolutionary you referred to yesterday, Thomas Jefferson. There was a great fuss when a hundred and seventy-one healthy trees had to be destroyed or removed to make way for his memorial.… Over there is the memorial to Abraham Lincoln. Imagine, an Illinois rustic raised in a log cabin, now seated in a Greek marble temple that resembles the Parthenon.… That’s the J. Edgar Hoover Building that houses the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It hoards two hundred fifty million fingerprints to identify murderers or people suffering from amnesia.”

  Near the end of the tour, Noy turned to him. “You are really irreverent, Mr. President.”

  “Mr. President is never irreverent. Only Matt Underwood is.” He covered her hand. “You are spending the day with Matt Underwood.”

  The limousine had slowed down.

  “The 1776 Club,” the driver announced.

  Underwood came forward, waving away the Secret Service. “Now to a long, leisurely lunch. Not irreverent, but certainly private.”

  “Why are you doing this, Matt?”

  “Because I wanted to know you better without talking of loans and air bases.”

  “Know me better? But why?”

  Helping her out of the car, he said, “Because I hope to be seeing more of you, much more. Any objections, Noy?”

  She stepped down and smiled up at him. “I’m flattered and I’m pleased.”

  And they went down the steps that led them into this obscure and closed restaurant.

  Frank Lucas, who had himself headed the Secret Service detail, was awaiting them at the entrance, standing next to the CLOSED FOR REPAIRS sign. He led them past the empty tables of the restaurant to a booth at the very rear.

  As they sat down alongside each other; Underwood said to Noy, “I took the liberty of asking Marsop what you usually eat at home. He told me fish, you like fish.”

  “I’m accustomed to fish,” said Noy. “We’re an island country and fish is our staple.”

  “So that’s the lunch, if you don’t mind, bouillabaisse, baked salmon loaf, some French fries, a lettuce salad, and your own choice of dessert.

  "Why don’t we start with a drink?”

  “Scotch and soda will be fine.”

  Underwood looked up at the waiter. “Make that two Scotch and sodas.”

  After the waiter had gone, Noy rested her eyes on Underwood. “I’m curious about something—”

  “Yes?”

  “Yesterday, Matt, after we parted, did you go back to your office?”

  “I did.”

  “Were the others waiting for you?”

  “My chief of staff and the secretary of state were there.”

  Noy licked her upper lip. “I supposed they would be. They wanted to know how you made out with me.”

  Underwood grinned. “Very much.” He met

  Noy’s gaze. “I told them of course.”

  “The larger loan and the smaller air base?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did they react?”

  Underwood chuckled. “As expected. They gave me hell.”

  Noy’s face was suddenly serious. “I’m sorry.”

  She hesitated. “If you want to renegotiate, we can do so.”

  Underwood shook his head. “You’re kind, but I gave my word and I’m keeping it.”

  “Even with your staff against you? You’ve got a lot of—what is the American word?—guts, you have that.”

  “It’s more than that. I’d never break my word with anyone, well, almost never, and especially not with you.”

  “I appreciate your kindness.”

  “Never mind,” said Underwood. “Let’s keep talk of affairs of state at a minimum. Let’s talk about each other. After the death of your husband, you were left with a family, weren’t you?”

  “Not extensive,” said Noy, “but enough to be comforting. I have a son, Den, six, and he is in school, as you know. I have a younger sister, Thida, unmarried, and smarter than I am. Den and Thida and I are close. I’m also close to my parents. They live in a village outside Visaka. In fact, my father owns the village and everything around it. I get on well with my mother, but less so with my father. I adore him, but often he’s annoyed with me. There are in my country often arranged marriages, but I refused that and chose my own mate. My father didn’t like that; and more than that, he felt Prem was too liberal. He’s also annoyed that I want to keep my husband’s promise to the people to parcel out the big estates to the poor. My father doesn’t like that. He knows his estate will be among them. He thinks it is too communistic. He knows I’m not a Communist, but he thinks I’ve gone too far left. I tell him that by doing this, trying to share the land, we can take away the only appeal the Communists have. In a way preserve what he enjoys, capitalist democracy. But my father can’t quite see that.” The drinks had been served, and Underwood held up his glass in a toast.

  “To capitalist democracy,” he said.

  She raised her glass and touched his. “Yes. And to two democratic leaders—us—who believe in people.”

  “Well spoken,” Underwood said, and he drank.

  Noy sipped her drink. “I have two uncles and one aunt in the countryside. We feel close to each other, too, and always gather together during holidays, especially Christmas and New Year’s Day. There is another I consider my family, although he isn’t in the family. I refer to Marsop. He would have given his life for my husband, as I’m sure he would for me.”

  “Were there other men before your husband?” Underwood wanted to know.

  “A few childhood affections in the lower grades and when I went to Wellesley.”

  “Did they amount to anything?”

  Noy was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Were you intimate with any of them? Did you have sex?”

  She was startled. “You are frank, aren’t you?”

  “Not really. I want to know all about you. I don’t want to skip a beat.”

  Noy was quiet a moment. “Very w
ell. I don’t mind telling you.”

  Underwood was quick to interrupt. “You don’t have to answer me.”

  “I want to,” she said. “We don’t do anything like that in my social class when we are unmarried. Never before I married Prem, and not since his death, have I had such a relationship.”

  “I didn’t mean to intrude on your intimate—”

  “No, Matt, it is good to air such things.”

  “There’s more I want to know,” said Underwood. “You’ve told me of those you care for on Lampang. Who do you care for least?”

  “I’m not sure I understand you.”

  “Your opposition, your enemies,” said Underwood. “Who do you dislike most?” Then he answered his own question. “I suppose it’s Lunakul, the head of the Communist insurgents.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “Lunakul is not your stereotypical Communist. He’s a mild, scholarly man who does not believe in violence. Oh he will use it, of course, if it’s the only way to help our people achieve equality, as he uses what he can from Cambodia and Vietnam to achieve this end. But at the core he is decent, and I am convinced I can deal with him peacefully without turning our nation into a Communist state.”

  The drinks had been removed, and she did not want a second. Both waited for the bouillabaisse to be served.

  They tasted the soup and Noy made delicious sounds of approval.

  Underwood was pleased, and spooned his own soup. He was midway through when he spoke again. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “Whom I dislike most on Lampang? Actually, I dislike no one. However, there is someone I distrust. That is another matter. It is not personal. It is politics and one who I think is bad for Lampang.”

  “Who is that?”

  “General Samak Nakorn,” she said, “the head of our army. He is the one your Pentagon respects the most.”

  “They do? Why?”

  “Because he’s a Red-baiter. The only good Communist is a dead one, he says. Solve our problems by wiping out every living Communist. Make Lampang safe for an ally like the United States.”

  Underwood considered this. “But you’re the president, Noy. Ultimately your defense department must go to you.”

  “They don’t have to.” She paused. “Does yours go to you on everything, Matt?”

  “I think so, but I can’t be sure.”

  They sat back and were quiet as a waiter removed the plates before them and served their next course.

  When the waiter had discreetly disappeared, Noy was the first to resume their conversation. “Of whom can you be sure in your government, Matt?”

  “Well, that’s not an easy order.”

  “Let me give you an easier one,” said Noy. “You wanted to know about those close to me, and I told you. Now I want to know who’s close to you.”

  “That’s obvious,” said Underwood. He chewed on some salmon and tried the salad. “I have a wife, as you know, and a grown daughter.”

  “Tell me about your wife.”

  “There’s not much to tell. She was judged the most beautiful young woman in the country, Miss America—”

  “I’m familiar with all that,” said Noy. “Tell me more.”

  “What’s there to tell?” Underwood said lightly.

  Noy bent her head to her food. “I heard she’s ambitious.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean. Where can she go from being first lady?”

  “She can go for being first lady again.” Underwood was briefly silent. “Yes, that’s true. Alice would like me to run for reelection.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Not especially. I’ve done what I can. Advocated and pushed programs against poverty, unemployment, crime. There are so many other things that need doing, putting over a national health service, instigating a voucher program for education, curbing defense contractors, making our foreign policy less imperialistic. I know I won’t achieve them in one term, not even in two. There’s too much opposition.” Then he added, “I’ve had enough of television and I suspect I’ve had enough of the White House. I don’t like waking up every day to decisions. Often there’s something to say for both sides of everything. I don’t like trying to satisfy everyone, with the Congress, my staff, and the press on my neck all the time. Don’t you find it difficult?”

  “Impossible,” said Noy. “When this term is ended, I’d like to retire from public life. Between us, I don’t intend to run for election.”

  “Despite General Nakorn?”

  Noy nodded. “Despite him or anyone or anything. I mean, I can’t promote my policies forever. Someone else is going to take over sooner or later and do things I don’t agree with.”

  Underwood was of the same mind. “That’s the way I see it. I’ve given it my best shot. After this I’d like to stay young by reading books I never had time to read and playing some golf, spending more time outdoors, trekking, skiing, and then devoting myself to something I call the People’s Nonnuclear Peace Plan.”

  “What’s that, Matt?”

  Eagerly he explained it to her.

  “That’s marvelous, Matt, if you can make it happen.”

  “I can try. So there’s all that to keep me busy. And then I’d like to get to know my daughter better.”

  “You made no mention of your wife.”

  “I know my wife well enough. Once out of the White House she’ll be dissatisfied. She’ll want something to do that keeps her in the limelight. She’ll probably go back to television. But she’d prefer to do that after an extra four years in the White House. I can’t see myself doing that, even for her. I can’t bear the thought of conferring with one more foreign leader while I’m president. After, it would be another thing, but not as president.”

  Noy smiled. “Yet here we are. You’ve given me two full days.”

  He did not look up. “You’re different.”

  She stared at him. “How?” Then she teased him: “Or maybe you don’t see me as a leader.”

  He met her eyes. “Oh, you’re a leader all right. No doubt about that. The way you went after me on that loan and bargained on the air base. I gave our differences my full attention because it was the price of spending more time with you. I like time with you because I can talk to you in a way I couldn’t possibly talk to Alice. She’s too concerned with herself, her body. You’re interested in other things, everything. Moreover, you’re warm, a forthright person who is also warm.”

  “Maybe that’s pretense,” she said.

  He shook his head. “You can’t pretend about what you really are. I trust my instincts about you.”

  Noy pushed her plate aside. She changed the subject. “What are your instincts about those around you, your staff members?”

  “Of course, they’re all people I selected on advice of others, and appointed.”

  “But whom do you trust most and whom do you trust least?”

  Underwood picked away at his salad. “I’m not sure. I depend on my chief of staff, Paul Blake. He’s well organized and efficient, .and a nice enough fellow. As to trusting him entirely—not quite. He’s got a lech for my wife.”

  “A lech?”

  “American slang. Lech, for lecherous. I watch him when he watches Alice. He can’t take his eyes off her buttocks and legs. He’s reasonably fond of his wife, but he’s mad about Alice. One glance from her and he’s putty in her pocket. So how can I trust him completely?”

  “And the others?”

  “Generally trustworthy, although I haven’t given them much thought. Secretary of State Morrison is honest. We don’t always agree, but he’s competent and honest. Secretary of Defense Cannon, I don’t know. He may be a Nakorn man, very anticommunist, but for the good of the United States. I can’t fault him for that. CIA Director Alan Ramage—who in the devil ever knows what the CIA is up to? I’m supposed to be told, to know everything, and maybe I do, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Anyway, that makes him good for his job.”

  They ordered fruit tar
ts for their dessert, ate them slowly, and then talked some more.

  Momentarily, Underwood glanced at his watch. The tea with the Senate wives was over, thank God. Presumably Alice and Blake had taken care of that. Alice would be annoyed by his absence, but would still enjoy the tea. She was good at that sort of thing.

  Then he remembered the rest of his schedule. There was to be a long-postponed national press conference at four thirty, then, after a short rest, a dinner with the governors and their wives.

  He’d better hurry to make the press conference, reluctant as he was to bring the adventure with Noy to an end.

  It was nearly a quarter to four in the afternoon when Underwood returned Noy to Blair House.

  Despite his haste now, the farewell to her was more important than anything else. He instructed his chauffeur to remain behind the wheel, even though the Secret Service detail, the agent in the front seat, and those in the other two cars were already on the sidewalk. Underwood insisted on opening the rear door of the limousine and assisting Noy out.

  Holding her by the hand, Underwood walked her to the wrought-iron gate that led into the entrance to Blair House. Two Secret Service men opened it, and Underwood and Noy went through it, and hand in hand they ascended the steep white steps until they reached the portico between the columns that flanked the front door. Two more Secret Service agents had announced their arrival, and a Filipino houseboy had the door open.

  Noy stopped and squeezed Underwood’s hand lightly, and instinctively he bent down to kiss her good-bye on the cheek. Instead, she turned her head toward him and met his lips with her own.

  “Thank you for everything, Matt,” she said breathlessly. “You’ve been more than wonderful.”

  “You, too.” He gulped. “I hope we can see each other again soon.”

  “I hope so,” she said, turning away.

  “We will, Noy,” he promised.

  He stood and watched her going toward the door to Blair House, and for the first time he was conscious that she had buttocks as fully rounded as Alice’s and probably softer.

  At the door she pirouetted to wave to him, and he observed her smooth, lustrous face one more time before waving back.

  Not just an intelligent face, he thought.